Doris Kieser offers refreshing insight into the intersection of Catholic sexual theology and the lived experience of female adolescents. Kieser's work with teenagers addresses a notable lacuna in the Catholic Church's sexual theology, which presumes its moral agents have both the knowledge and maturity level of well-educated adults. They do not. To this end, Kieser's work not only adds to the church's treatment of female subjectivity but makes significant strides in developing a Catholic understanding of the moral subjectivity of adolescents.

The slim volume's eight chapters cover an impressive amount of theological ground. Following an introduction, Kieser uses six chapters to develop the elements necessary for grounding the revisionist sexual theology of flourishing she offers in the final chapter. Her introduction helpfully contextualizes key concepts, lays out her methodology, and offers a practical outline for the reader. The meat of the work begins with a concise recapitulation of natural law in the Roman Catholic tradition beginning with Thomas Aquinas (chapter 2) to present-day articulations of a feminist natural law in the work of Cristina Traina (chapter 3). Chapter 4's theological anthropology brings the complementarity of John Paul II's theology of the body into conversation with postmodern, poststructuralist philosopher Judith Butler's thought on the social construction of gender and sexual subjectivity. Kieser then treats the development of female adolescents in the contemporary Western context in terms of sex and gender (chapter 5) as well as physical and biological development (chapter 6). In chapter 7's discussion of flourishing, Kieser offers practical suggestions for crafting positive constructions of adolescent female sexuality from a girl's formative daily activities and goals to her norms, values, and beliefs to sexual pleasure and desire.

The final chapter offers both prerequisites for female sexual flourishing and some normative content for a theological sexual ethic. In so doing, her framework “invites the privileging of female sexual experience in a feminist sexual theology; it welcomes sexual experiences of pleasure that have traditionally been absent from the development of theology” (145). Indeed, with such priorities, Kieser's prerequisites for adolescent female sexual flourishing are nothing short of astounding. These four prerequisites are “an open social awareness and acceptance of the functioning female sexual body” (154); “explicit recognition not only that sexuality is inherently good and sexual expression is good, but also that sexual pleasure itself is good, that female sexuality itself is good, and that female sexual pleasure itself is good” (155); “the broad recognition that sexual development occurs within a communal context” (155); and “for adolescent (and adult) females to flourish in their sexualities, particularly within the Roman Catholic context, the hierarchical church must divest itself of anthropological formulations that diminish the fullness of females’ humanity” (156). One cannot help but imagine how magisterial teaching on sex and the body might differ when operating from these starting points.

The normative content Kieser suggests for her sexual ethic is similarly remarkable in casting sexual expression in the larger matrix of social goods. Her six norms prescribe that “personal sexual knowledge of one's body is a good” (157); the onset of heterosexual sexual intercourse should be delayed (158); in a partnership there ought to be equity of power and appropriate vulnerability within the context of a mutual relationship (158–59); there should be an “intentional openness to fruitfulness in sexual expression, although this openness need not be physical” (160); and “sexual expression must entail commitment to self, to other, and to God” (160).

Were Kieser to build on this already necessary body of research, it would be fascinating to see how she develops the interplay she briefly touches upon between racial, socioeconomic, and sexual identity frames alongside her initial lenses of physical and personal development. How can Catholic sexual theology be carried forward to speak to the flourishing of young women of color, young women without economic or social resources, and young transwomen? In her adolescent female sexual ethic, Kieser lays the necessary groundwork for what ought well prove to be a rich field for further theological ethical reflection. This text will prove to be an excellent resource in high school, seminary, and university courses.